By Elissa Miolene El Pais
MADRID - Despite pledges to localize funding and untie foreign aid, over 90% of the global north's official development assistance still flows to organizations in their own countries.
Less than one-tenth of the official development assistance funneled to civil society goes toward organizations in the global south, according to a new report released last week — one that analyzed the funding behaviours of a dozen donors from 2009 to 2021.
The report, aptly named “Too Southern to be Funded”, was published by the #ShiftThePower movement, a coalition of organizations pushing for locally led development.
It found that almost 63% of funding went to countries’ own civil society organizations, while just under 29% went to civil society in other global north countries, leaving a little over 8% for organizations in the global south. So basically, breadcrumbs.
“For some reason, various governments think their own INGOs are best placed to deal with the challenges around the world, rather than the organizations in those communities,” said Dylan Mathews, the chief executive officer of Peace Direct, an organization that backed the report. He wonders, “Why do we still believe that?”
That’s a good question — one our sector grapples with every day. The report raised another thorny question: Does an international agency’s country office — which might be staffed with local employees — count as local?
